


Val's 18th Birthday

by KateLouisaRose



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Friendship, Gen, Teleportation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2066976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KateLouisaRose/pseuds/KateLouisaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My God.” He breathed.<br/>“What?!”<br/>“The spitting image…”<br/>Valkyrie followed his hollow gaze. “Christ on a bicycle; Skulduggery Pleasant are you staring at a girl?!”</p><p>Skulduggery takes Valkyrie to a pub on her 18th, and things end up going a little differently than planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Val's 18th Birthday

Valkyrie looked at the drink in front of her. She bit her lip.

“Just drink it,” Skulduggery told her.

“Is this punishment?” She asked. Skulduggery tilted his skull.

“Punishment for what exactly?” Valkyrie looked at him sceptically. “I’ve taken it upon myself to buy your first proper drink on your eighteenth birthday,” Skulduggery told her. “If you don’t drink it I will be deeply insulted.”

“Are you making me drink this because you can’t?” Valkyrie asked, watching the ice bobbing in the clear liquid. If she didn’t know what it was it could have been water. She shuddered.

“I’m living vicariously through you.” Skulduggery told her.

“I like beer,” she said.                           

“Of course you do.”

“I do!”

“Nobody likes beer, Valkyrie. They just pretend to like it. Beer is a lie.”

Valkyrie shrugged and drew a smiley face in the condensation on her glass. Skulduggery huffed irritably and then he stiffened, as much as a living skeleton with no real muscles can. Valkyrie sniffed the drink. It smelled like nail polish remover. She grimaced.

“What are you looking at?” She asked, when she was sure that Skulduggery’s mood had actually changed.

“My God.” He breathed.

“ _What?!_ ”

“The spitting image…”

Valkyrie followed his hollow gaze. “Christ on a bicycle; Skulduggery Pleasant are you staring at a _girl_?!”

“Shh.”

“Don’t shush me!”

“Shh. You’re spoiling the moment.”

Valkyrie looked at the woman. She was pretty, blonde, around thirty, and drinking a martini at the bar.

“She’s alright.”

“You’re _ruining_ it.”

“What in the hell-” Skulduggery shoved her face away with his hand. “What,” Valkyrie said, resurfacing, “is so special about a random woman that you won’t even let me speak?” Skulduggery just stared past her.

Valkyrie took out her phone, logging into the pub’s Wi-Fi and googling a picture.

“This her?” She shoved the phone in front of Skulduggery’s face. Skulduggery stared at the picture of Grace Kelly and cleared his non-existent throat.

“I don’t know what you mean.” He said, unconvincingly.

“You have such a crush on her it’s embarrassing.” Skulduggery waved her away.

“I appreciate great beauty.”

“She’s dead.”

“I’m dead,” Skulduggery pointed out.

“Oh yes I’m sorry, you’re perfect for each other.”

Skulduggery straightened his hat. He turned to her.

“How do I look?” He asked. Valkyrie looked at his bare skull and narrowed her eyes.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Deadly.” He replied, unbuttoning his shirt. Skulduggery tapped at the symbols China Sorrows had carved into his collarbone and a convincing looking face flowed over the pale bone. Valkyrie hummed thoughtfully.

“Nah,” she said, “too young.” Skulduggery opened his mouth but Valkyrie had already pushed aside his hand, tapping at the symbols herself and watching as every new face replaced the last.

“Too old,” she said, “too freckly… too pale… too wrinkly…” and then, “hmm.”

“What?”

“Those are very blue eyes.”

Skulduggery blinked at her. “I like blue eyes,” he said.

“Hmm,” said Valkyrie. “Nah.” Skulduggery’s eyes widened as his face was changed again. Valkyrie looked at his new face calculatingly. “You look like Marlon Brando.”

“’The Godfather’ Brando or ‘Streetcar’ Brando?”

“’The Godfather’ Brando.”

“Change it.”

She tapped again. “OK, OK, how do you feel about Cary Grant?” Skulduggery looked at her.

“I feel very good about Cary Grant,” he said hopefully.

Valkyrie stretched up and gave him a peck on the cheek. It was cold, but somehow comforting. “You’ll do,” She told him with a grin. Skulduggery touched his face.

“Do you have a mirror?” Valkyrie rolled her eyes.

“You look great. Classy, smart, sharp, all that jazz.”

Skulduggery took a deep, unnecessary breath and stood up slowly.

“Go get her.”

“Thanks,”

“Life is but a risk.”

“Thank you.”

“When life gives you lemons-”

“ _Valkyrie.”_

Valkyrie grinned. He looked quite handsome. She wondered if this was how he might have looked when he was, for all intents and purposes, alive. She watched Skulduggery walk over, watched him touch the woman lightly on the arm, straighten his tie. The woman said something with a smile and gestured to the stool beside her. Skulduggery sat. Valkyrie could see his lips moving as he spoke, which was kind of weird. She dug out her phone again and sent a text to Fletcher.

_Skulduggery’s talking to a girl._

_He’s doing what?_

_Chatting up a girl. She’s pretty hot._

_Val don’t you dare lie about this._

_I’m not kidding, it’s seriously disturbing._

_Send me a picture of the bar._

Valkyrie snapped a picture of her surroundings and sent it. Seconds later there was a sudden breeze around her as the air was displaced to make room for another person. She didn’t react.

“Oh my God.” Fletcher whispered from beside her, chin propped in his hands. “It’s like watching nature unfold.”

“He’s doing well,” Valkyrie said encouragingly. “Look, she’s laughing.” Fletcher grimaced.

“I’m watching Skulduggery _flirt._ I’m so uncomfortable. Make it stop.” 

“He thinks she looks like Grace Kelly.” She sighed.

“Why does that matter?”

“Are you blind? He’s totally got the hots for Grace Kelly.”

“Why?”

Valkyrie shrugged. “He thinks she’s classy.”

Fletcher stared at the couple at the bar a little longer. “You could so take her in a fight.”

Valkyrie lifted a shoulder. “I know.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“I just thought of a great chat-up line for him.” Fletcher said suddenly.

“Do _not._ ”

“There are 206 bones in the human body,”

“Stop.”

“Would you-”

“Please don’t.”

“Like another one?”

Valkyrie hit him.

* * *

“Have you ever thought of Skulduggery on the pull? Like when he was alive. Bet he was a real ladies man.”

“I don’t know; he looked kind of nervous.” Valkyrie said mildly.

“The guy’s not hit on a woman in like, a million years; give him a break.” Valkyrie grunted in response and ate another piece of popcorn, distracted by the way that Skulduggery was leaning a little closer, his hand on the woman’s arm. He was buying her a drink. Fletcher put his feet up on the table, having recently returned from a trip to the local cinema to grab some snacks as they watched the spectacle unfold. He nudged her full glass.

“Are you drinking this?” Valkyrie looked away and down at the drink.

“Yes.” She replied sharply, picking up the glass with the melted ice and knocking it back.

“Blimey.” Valkyrie ignored him.

“Oh shit he’s coming back,” Fletcher said. “Talk to you later, Val.”

Valkyrie waved him off distractedly, hardly noticing when he disappeared. Skulduggery sat down heavily. One hand covered his left eye and the artificial face was drooping a little on one side.

“What did she do to you?!” Valkyrie snapped.

“Nothing,” Skulduggery mumbled. “There was a small malfunction with my left eyeball. Nothing major, but she did think I was having a stroke so I had to make my escape.”

“Oh God,” Valkyrie gasped between laughter, “oh that’s pitiful.”

“Shut up.” Skulduggery replied. He tapped the symbols on his collarbone again and the face receded. He sat back and looked at her.

“You drank your drink.” He noted.

“Of course I did,” Valkyrie answered, “it would have been rude not to.” Skulduggery’s skull tipped in a way that could almost have been described as fond.

“Why is there popcorn on this seat?” He asked.

“Want to leave?” Valkyrie responded cheerfully.

They made their way outside into the darkness. Valkyrie wrapped her coat around her and looked up at the stars.

“I only regret not being able to see you have your first drink,” Skulduggery said thoughtfully. “Did you like it?”

“It tasted like bleach.”

“As exactly it should.” Skulduggery said, satisfied. “And I hope that will teach you a lesson to never drink ever again.”

“In your dreams,” Valkyrie grinned, knocking her hip against Skulduggery’s. It hurt.

“You’re insufferable.” Skulduggery told her.

“Takes one to know one.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“You don’t make any sense.”

“You’re being deliberately stupid, aren’t you?” Skulduggery sighed.

Valkyrie looked up at what she considered his real face, the fascinating structure of bone that was more familiar to her than anything else. She smiled.

“It’s like you don’t even know me.”

 


End file.
